


Road to Hate

by Raelae



Series: Tales From The Apocalypse [4]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Family, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 13:18:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10190720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raelae/pseuds/Raelae
Summary: It's a typical day in a typical infected world. But not all days stay exactly as the ones before them, even if they start out that way. This is one of those days, and it only leaves Ellie with more questions.





	

Ellie shifted the shoulder strap of her pack as she stood back up, popping a few of the berries she had just plucked into her mouth. She smiled a bit at the sweet, tangy taste that spread throughout. When it came to sweet things these days, this was about as close as you could get. She had never been able to try the sweets from the old times, as most were snapped up quickly in the aftermath of the outbreak, as they were considered a prized commodity.

Sure, she had found a few of these things here and there in her travels, but time had killed the sweet taste of them, or in most cases whatever was found was just plain UN-edible. The closest she had come to chocolate in her life was old cocoa powder, and even that was bland.

But, in the end, it was hard to miss something you had never known, so she was happy for the berries. They were healthier anyway from what Joel had told her.

She plucked a few more berries from the bush as she moved forward, thinking of all the stories Joel had told her of the old times.

The old times. Joel had scoffed at the title, saying it made it sound like the previous life was centuries ago rather than decades. But to most of the younger ones today, it may well have been centuries. Other than what Joel would tell her, she had only seen things from days passed through old books and magazines. Movies of course were another source, when the electricity didn't kick out anyway. Wasn't that the hydroelectric dam wasn't reliable, but snow storms and bandits often times wreaked havoc.

She shook her head as once again her mind sidetracked her from her duties. She couldn't help it though. Traveling the beauty of the Wyoming wilderness often caused one to lose themselves in thought, whether it be from the days events, or just life in particular. She loved it out here. The forests and the mountains and the trees were so much better than the tall buildings Boston had offered.

She yawned a bit as she approached her destination, an old bunch of cabins hidden deep in the woods. She was told it was an area hunters would stay during the hunting seasons back in the day, now it was just a means of supplies, and possible dangers from roving bandits. So as she approached, she pulled on the sling of her rifle, sliding it off her shoulder and securing it at the ready for any trouble that may arise. 

It wouldn't be the first time she had gotten ambushed in this area, and the last time had been a particularly hairy one. While struggling with one of the bandits, the sleeve of her shirt was torn, revealing her bite. It was clear that none of the bandits could be spared at that point, as any sort of rumor could reach back to their community. Only a few people had known of her condition, and even that had taken quite a bit of convincing to prove she was safe. So it was with Joel's help that they finished off every last bandit.

It had become apparent that day that they needed to be more careful about her bite, but at the same time she was getting annoyed with keeping it covered all the time, it made the heat of the summers practically unbearable. So it was she who had come up with an alternative, much to Joel's displeasure. But she had been eighteen at the time and there wasn't really anything he could say about it. And so, she got a hold of one of the few people who knew of her 'condition', and asked them to cover it for her. In the old times, the older woman had been a tattoo artist, and so she offered to cover it with a tattoo.

Ellie was pleased, and even came up with her own design for it. If there's one thing she had been proud of gaining over the years, it was the ability to draw. And so she came up with the tattoo she now wore on her right arm, two thin branches with leaves, one set thicker than the other, and at the bottom was a large moth. Joel, again had been less than pleased, saying she could have at least gotten a wolf or something. But she was proud of it, and told him to stop being a complaining old man. He had taken a bit of offense to that but, she knew he knew it was all in jest.

And so, in the end, she could at last wear short sleeves. The tattoo covered enough that the bite itself looked to only be a massive scar of some sort, and so a year after, still nothing was ever noticed. She was able to breathe a sigh of relief, though Joel still stayed on edge. Some things never changed she guessed.

Shaking her head as yet again she allowed her mind to wander, she readjusted the rifle in her arms as she made her way towards the dilapidated cabins. She checked each one by one, making sure that no one, or no thing, lay in wait for her. Though after only a few moments she realized that'd be impossible, as the wood was now so rotten that she could scarcely get up the steps to clear the cabins. If she, with her lighter weight, had trouble walking on the old planks, there was no way any heavier person could. Besides, the whole area just looked very abandoned, the only signs of life being the birds chirping around her, and the various animal scat littered across the ground.

She shouldered her rifle again, satisfied that there was no threat, for the moment at least. Now her trouble lay with the cabins themselves, and wondering if it was worth the risk to look inside for even the smallest leftover supply. With the bandits using the cabins on occasion, they could find a useful item from time to time, but with the cabins as far gone as they were, finding anything seemed doubtful.

So, she wrote them off, leaving them completely to the environment that had almost fully destroyed them. There were a few storage sheds though that might yield something, as they were built directly on the ground and thereby had no floors to cave in under her feet. But, even they proved empty and she was forced to move on.

She wiped a hand across her brow as the heating of the day was growing more intense. Being in the woods themselves did lessen the temperature quite a bit but, it was still summer and summer heat would not be denied. And judging by how hot it was getting, she realized it must be some time after noon. She'd gotten up very early in the morning to try to get a good portion of the scavenging done before it had gotten too hot, but she had found very little and so was forced to continue the search.

She made the decision to stop for a rest and so made her way down to the river where she could cool off a bit.

The water was less of an enemy now that Joel had taught her how to swim. And oh what a harrowing event that had been. She still had a massive fear thanks to her near drowning back in Salt Lake years prior, so more than once she had panicked and nearly drowned herself and Joel. But all had worked out in the end and she could swim quite happily now.

Settling down by the rivers edge, she slipped her shoes and socks off and dipped her feet in the cool water. Just that little coolness alone seemed to stretch throughout her body and she felt much better.

She sat quietly, sipping some water and eating a few more berries as she watched some deer move about on the other side of the river. And more than once she was spooked by a fish jumping in the water. Better a fish than a clicker though.

And that was another thing she liked being out here. Although they still dealt with infected, the numbers were far fewer, as the environment out here did it's own sort of damage control on them. The landscape in the area was hilly and mountainous, and the infected were far from smart. So it was easy to lead them where you wanted and then have them simply fall off a cliff, or slip into the rapid running waters of the Snake River. And winter, well winter was the one reprieve from both man and infected. The snow drifts became so high out here that travel was near impossible, and a lot of times the infected simply died before spring. Hard to keep a body functioning with no food after all. Yes, life did seem simpler, and easier out here.

But the old thoughts still wore her down, the thoughts of failure. The cure she had pushed so hard to make happen, never came to be. She was still left with the guilt of being the one to survive, while Riley had died. She wanted for there to at least be a reason for it, but in the end that fell through as most things in her life had.

She knew Joel lied, she understood why he had, but it didn't change the fact he could have told her. Should have told her. It was her life after all, she had a right to know. But over the years her anger over it faded as her understanding grew. Something happened back there, something horrible that he was so afraid to tell her. And knowing him that could only mean one thing, a lot of people died back there. And more than likely, that meant Marlene as well. She thought she'd be more angry than she was, at that realization. But she found herself more indifferent as time went on, maybe because she was getting use to loss now. Or maybe because Joel had risked himself for her more than Marlene had. Either way, it didn't matter. Something happened that could not be changed, she'd have to deal with it.

She sighed, watching as the deer across the river made their way off into the forest, their thirst satiated. So now she was left with the river and the fish as her only company, and even then the fish were only occasional company.

She looked up and down the river, trying to make a decision as to which way to go next, when she noticed something. She'd been this way many times but she hadn't noticed the old wooden steps before. They were near the waters edge, down the riverbank to her left. She could only assume that they had been well hidden till one of the spring washes that came down the mountain raised the water level, beating back the brush and revealing them. This most likely happened a lot but, they didn't always come to these cabins the same time each year.

With her curiosity peaked, she put her socks and shoes back on and made her way down the bank, approaching the new find. 

The stairs were nearly gone she noticed as she approached, only the bottom portion somehow still there, while the top half gave under the weight of plant growth and probably termites.

She scaled the side of the hill next to them, knowing they had to lead to something. And lead to something they did. She noticed a smaller cabin, much smaller than the ones at the camp just down the way. It looked like maybe only one or two people could fit in in comfortably. 

She approached it, noticing that although the small set of steps that lead up to the small porch were quite worn, it still looked stable enough. So carefully she ascended the stairs, grabbing the railing as her foot broke one of the steps.

Refocusing herself, she continued up the rest of the way, carefully setting one foot, and then another, onto the porch. It creaked slightly under her weight but, otherwise held strong, much to her relief. She still made her way forward slowly though, fearing she could fall through at any moment. But the structure seemed surprisingly strong and she wondered if someone had built this after the outbreak. Log cabins certainly wouldn't be hard to build, and quite obviously there were more people than just them living out here.

Gaining more confidence now, she push forward with more self assurance and opened the door, quietly stepping inside.

It certainly looked like this had been a more recent build, as there was very little in the way of what Joel would have called modern accessories in his day. Everything was wood, none of the laminated or marble counter tops, and even what they used as a sink seemed home made. It was just a barrel cut in half and set in place, with a hole at the bottom to stream water through. Beyond that there was only cupboards and two chairs sitting in the rather small, but no less inviting looking, sitting area. Down a small narrow hallway, she found two closets on either side and a smaller room in the back with bedding material in it. Wasn't too much here, so she returned to the front where she had also spotted a narrow set of stairs that went up to an open loft area with a railing running along it. It was here that she felt she hit the jackpot.

There were cases up here, four medium sized and sturdy looking ones, each made of a thick hard plastic. When she rounded them to the other side, she stopped quickly. Firefly symbols were sprayed on there, though they looked rather worn, telling her they had been there for quite some time.

She was taken aback at first, never hearing anything about the Fireflies being in this area in particular. Around it sure but, they mostly stayed in more heavily built areas, like schools and hospitals. This must have been some sort of outpost, a cache of sorts maybe.

Her curiosity becoming more peaked, she lifted the lid off of one of the cases and began to look through it, finding mostly paperwork in it. She was about to pass it and go on to the other cases when something caught here eye. A date on one of the files placed it around the time she was born, 2019. It was the year alone that had caught her eye, and she felt she should think little more of it, till she spotted words like, 'experiment' and 'multiple test subjects'. That shouldn't surprise her, it was early on in the infection and the testing was heavy in those early years. But as she continued to read through the file, her mind became more and more disturbed. She had gotten so into what she was reading that she didn't notice the creaking of the floor boards below, or the thuds on the stairs till the one who approached was right there.

She dropped the file quickly and reached behind her, grabbing the handgun and whipping it out in front of her.

The rabbit stopped dead in it's tracks at the top of the stairs, clearly surprised to see someone there. It stared at her for only a moment though before it bolted back down the stairs, and clear out the open door.

Ellie let out a sigh of relief, berating herself slightly for leaving the door open. It had been one of the rules she made for herself over time, to close doors after clearing a room. That way anyone, or anything, that wanted to get in would be slowed, giving her time to book it. But she had been so curious of her find that she let it slip from her mind.

Taking a deep breath, she slid her pack off and slipped the file she had found into her pack, scowling as she did so. This was something she was going to have to ask Joel about later.

Zipping her pack back up and slipping it on to her back again, she slipped her gun back into place as she made her way back down the stairs. She took a quick moment to check the two closets she had seen, finding nothing of use in them, before heading back out.

She could see all the rabbit scat littering the area now and realized they must use the little cabin for shelter. Not at all surprising really, that had become the fate of most of the abandoned buildings littered about. The ones that still stood anyway. Time was taking it's toll and more and more of the old world was disappearing. With them, went the histories and stories of many people from before the outbreak. With no one to pass them along, time would forget it all, and if man did crawl out of this dark hole, all that would be left was the destruction that had incurred. No one would know of much before the outbreak. 

That thought made her sad, thinking of all the people who would literally just never have existed once all who knew them passed with them. The world would just soldier on and start anew, if they survived this at all that is.

She froze for a moment as she heard the brush off to her right rustle loudly. Judging by the sound, there was no way it was another rabbit. But by the time she had centered her attention fully on it, the sound moved to larger patches of brush behind her. There were either multiples of them, or whatever it was was quick.

Not taking any risks, she slipped her rifle off her shoulder and readied it, slipping the safety off as she pointed it at the set of bushes. For a long moment there was nothing, no movement, no sound. She was starting to think that maybe she was overreacting, until she heard a deep grunting sound. 

She knew the sound well and knew it was not an infected, but a bear. 

She very slowly pull back on the lever, getting a round in the chamber. This of course alerted the bear, and it pushed it's way through the brush. It was already standing on it's back legs, front legs flailing as it let out a guttural roar. It was a black bear, not the largest of bears but still no less dangerous.

But it was also at this moment that she discovered that she had been very VERY wrong about her initial assumption. The left half of the bears face was engulfed by a thick plate of fungus, while the other half had fungus growing out here and there, slowly forming the plate on that side. There were also bits and pieces sticking out along the neck, showing the progression of the infection.

It being a bear was bad enough, but an infected bear was the worst news possible.

She backed up a bit, knowing full well that this would be far from an easy fight. Infected humans were one thing, but infected animals were a whole other story. A lot of animals naturally had thicker pelts for protection, and many had a natural aggression that was multiplied by the Cordyceps infection. Which means she may as well be fighting a grizzly bear right now rather than a black bear.

It roared again as it dropped to all fours, charging her. Along with it's strength, it's speed had doubled as well, giving her no time to fire off a round at it before having to dodge out of the way. And the bear was already on her again before she could even whip the rifle back around to aim at it again.

“Fuck!” She yelled as it swiped at her, knocking the rifle from her grasp and sending her stumbling backwards.

Knowing she had no time to recover, she just rolled off to the side, just barely avoiding the bears front paws as it pounded down on the spot where she had previously been.

She scrambled to her feet quickly, moving quickly over to a stand of trees just so she'd have something between her and the infected bear.

It now became a game of wills as the bear constantly charged her, while she quickly would dodge behind yet another tree, slowly making her way closer to where her rifle had landed.

She barely avoided a blow from the bear as she miss-calculated a step, ducking out of the way just in time as the bears claws met with the tree and left deep gashes.

“Mother fucker!”

She dodged behind a thicker tree, just mere feet from her rifle. Even if she did make a leap for it, the bear would still be on her before she could bring it to aim, so she had to come up with some other option.

But there was very little she could do, she had nothing to distract it with to buy her time, and she couldn't keep bouncing from tree to tree forever. She would be the one to tire, not the infected bear.

She found her only choice would be to make a mad dash for the rifle, and instead of bringing it up to fire, running back towards the small cabin. She knew it offered little in the way of protection, but it would keep the bear at bay for long enough so she could sight it and take it out.

“Oh fuck me...” She cursed as she dashed out from behind the tree and ran for the rifle, plucking it from the ground and running forward without even attempting to look behind her.

She could hear the bear huffing and growling closely behind her, almost on her heels. She knew for a fact out running a normal bear was impossible enough, but an infected one was far more impossible, so she was almost expecting to get plowed down by the bear.

But through some miracle, she made it to the cabin and leapt up the steps, slamming the door behind her.

The bear made no attempt to stop however, and ran head first into the closed door. Somehow the door managed to hold up, but part of the bears head was sticking through the bottom part, it's muzzle and part of it UN-inhibited face poking through. It was clearly unhappy but also clearly stuck. It seemed part of the fungal plating did catch part of the broken door, hooking the beast there.

Ellie knew this may be her only chance to easily take the bear before it got loose, so she raised the rifle and aimed at it's head.

The infected bear roared and grunted as it tried to free itself of it's confines, eventually giving up on trying to pull it's head out and instead punching one of it's front paws through the door.

It continued to pummel the door till it broke away bit by bit, allowing for the creature to stick more of it's head through.

Ellie knew this was it, she either killed it now or more than likely died as there was nowhere to run in this confined space.

She pulled back on the trigger just as the bear had made a big enough hole to slam it's shoulders against the door, crushing what was left of the bottom part of it.

It roared as the bullet hit just above it's right eye, causing the bear to pull it's head up, smashing more of the door.

The bear was not down yet, and was even more pissed off.

It opened it's mouth wide and roared at her, saliva spraying out and running down it's muzzle as it did so. Then it pushed itself forward again, taking the door off it's hinges as it did.

“Fuck!”

She got another round in the chamber and fired again, and again, and again. The bear kept coming a step forward regardless of the rounds she was putting in it's head.

“Damn you and your fucking hard skulls!”

It made one final leap at her as she backed herself towards the stairs. She hit the bottom step which tripped her up and the gun went off as she fell backwards, slamming hard against the stairs.

She was dazed for a moment, grunting from the pain of having fallen so hard against the stairs, and from having the rifle crash down hard on her ribs. But that lasted only for a moment as the infected bear came to mind again.

She clutched her rifle as she clambered backwards up a few of the steps, but stopped as she noticed the bear laying motionless at the foot of the step, mere inches from here she had been.

It's one uncovered eye was completely blown out as somehow she had nailed it there as she tripped backwards. She had managed to hit the one soft UN-protected part of the infected animal without even looking. She'd pat herself on the back if she didn't think she was about to shit herself.

She jumped and raised her rifle again as something else pounded up the steps to the front door, and she only just barely reigned herself in enough to not shoot who was standing there.

“...Christ baby girl...”

Joel stood there, out of breath and staring down at the dead animal, both a little terrified and in awe.

“...I'm not sure which I hate most...infected people or infected animals...” She said as she sat down on a step, starting to shake a bit.

Joel stepped over the prone beast and made his way to where she was, taking a seat by her and slipping an arm over her.

“Deep breaths kiddo, you're gonna hyper ventilate.”

She did as he instructed, leaning her head against his shoulder as she did. “That...fucking sucked...”

“But you did it. And you lived.”

“Barely. It was just dumb luck.”

“Better than no luck.”

She nodded slightly, looking down at the dead bear.

“Over twenty years...why now? Why do you think the animals suddenly got infected?”

He sighed, looking down at the bear as he thought for a minute.

“Well, I reckon it could have mutated again. I mean, it wouldn't be the only thing to do it. Different viruses and stuff mutated all the time before the outbreak. So I suppose this is no different.”

“Yeah but, how does it jump species?”

“Some things can. I mean, even animals could get the flu like humans can.”

“But this?”

Again Joel thought. He had wondered the same thing more than a few times. How it had went from bugs to humans, then animals.

“Maybe it ain't natural.” He said at last.

She looked up at him, tilting her head slightly. “What do you mean?”

“...I mean...maybe someone interfered? I mean...it was always a rumor that went around just after the outbreak...that it was man made. That someone mutated it on purpose somehow.”

“Why would they do that?”

He sighed deeply, closing his eyes for a moment. “Things weren't exactly peaceful in my time, and sometimes...people do things like this for mass damage. Think it got out of hand though, if that is what happened...”

Ellie scowled and looked at the bear again. “...and the animals?”

“...again, could just have happened from the fungus mutating again or...maybe from testing on animals to find the cure. Their infection...might be a complete accident.”

“Testing on animals...like those monkeys back at the University...”

“Yeah, just like the monkeys...”

“Something bothered me about those monkeys...”

“And what's that?”

“They were infected but they didn't look it, or act it...they never attacked us, they ran from us...”

“...what are you thinking?”

“...maybe that one Firefly got it right, the one that got bit. But nothing got done about it.”

“Reckon there was no time, what with them bugging out and all. Plus, it sounded like he was letting the monkeys go so...”

“You think something bad happened?”

“They left a lot of medical paperwork there...I think they had to leave a lot quicker than they anticipated, and it may have been from the infected animals that Firefly let go. You can predict an infected humans actions, an animal is a whole different story.”

“Think the monkeys infected more people then, and that's what happened?”

He nodded as he slowly got to his feet, rubbing at his back a bit as he did so. He didn't say much else as he made his way down the steps, stepping over the bears corpse yet again.

“Joel? The infected you ran into at the University...were any of them...?”

“...” He nodded again. “Ran into a bloater...had a Firefly pendant on it...”

“Fuck...”

“Kiddo, that's long in the past now, nothing we can do about it.”

“But what if they had it? If that idiot hadn't gotten bitten...”

“Ellie...stop. It's done with. Now lets just...get moving before any more surprises find us.”

He made his way to the door before she could protest in any way. She only sighed and shouldered her rifle, following him out the door and back towards the settlement.

“...Joel?”

“Hm?”

“...did they ever...test on humans?”

His pace slowed but he didn't stop. “...was another rumor...yeah. They say...people thought maybe that FEDRA was using...was using prisoners. They denied it of course but, the rumors persisted, so they eventually admitted to it. But they said they only used condemned prisoners.”

“That was a lie though, wasn't it?”

“...most likely. Didn't matter if you were a serial killer or you stole a candy bar, you were an undesirable, so you had no rights. More than likely they used people that broke the QZ rules as well...”

“...what the fuck was wrong with those people?”

“They wanted a cure, at any cost...”

“...what else do you think they would do? Not just what FEDRA would have done but...what the Fireflies might have done...?”

He stopped now, turning to look at her.

“What are you getting at kiddo?”

“How far do you think they'd go for a cure? You think they'd try to...what do they call it again...engineer one?”

“Engineer...where are you getting this from?”

“Just...wondering. If someone got desperate enough...what might they try?”

“...Fireflies are a lot of things but...if you're getting at what I think you're getting at, I don't think they forced anyone.”

“...what if someone volunteered?”

“...I reckon that would be a different story then. Why are you bringing this up?”

“Nothing...just wondering...” She said as she pushed passed him. “Anyway, what are you doing out here?”

“Was hunting with Tommy, but he went back early to deal with something, I stayed out to track a bit more.”

“You sure found me quick enough.”

“You weren't hard to miss, what with all the growling from the bear and the gunfire.”

“...hm.” She said nothing more as she pushed on.

He watched her as she walked away, a confused expression crossing his features. He couldn't for the life of him figure out just what had changed in her between that morning and now.

But, knowing that the action she was now taking meant she was done talking about it, all he could do was shake his head and follow behind her.

Ahead of him Ellie was staring at the ground, going over repeatedly in her mind what she had read in the file. Each time she did, it forced the scowl on her face to deepen more and more.

~”...how could they try to breed a cure...?”~

How indeed. She was just going to have to dig a little more into that one. Maybe the Fireflies, were far from the saviors they pretended to be.

**Author's Note:**

> So, although I'm sure it's wrong, I always had this idea about something. I kept it to myself for the most part, till more people I chatted with started to suggest the same thing I was thinking. Just what was put into finding a cure? This is only a small part of it, I'll deal fully into it with another side story. I was originally going to do the whole thing here but, I realized where this one was going might make it a bit awkward to just, add into it fully. So I just slightly suggested a little. The next one will go more fully into thought.
> 
> The infected bear is completely brought about by the one shot from the teaser with the deep claw marks in the tree. I know more than a few of us wondered on infected animals. This is my what if on that too, even if it might be wrong. XD
> 
> Really hope all that made sense. XD


End file.
